by MICHAEL MAJOR

The world has become so interconnected that it is nearly impossible to keep our information private. We valued privacy only a few decades ago, but in 2024, too many of us have traded our personal information for the promise of convenience and automation.

The preservation of personal information is of utmost importance to preppers, as certain factions within the government might display a keen interest in the habits and particulars of individuals preparing for emergencies.

What I will detail here are 7 things that we all do, which give away information to those around us.

Social Media Posts

Social media is so ingrained into the fabric of our society that it is impossible to escape. For preppers and survivalists, our social media feed offers a window into our lives and the types of content we are interested in.

The first step that you should take is to make your social media profile private. This will give you more control over who is seeing what you post. Beyond this, you should be thinking very carefully about every post.

A few types of posts that you should avoid entirely:

• Posting while on vacation when your house is sitting empty
• Anything related to weapons and firearms
• Anything that gives information about your children, their ages, where they go to school, or what activities they’re in
• Survival and prepping content showing your preps
• Anything related to politics and religion
• New purchases

When you are posting a photo, zoom into the background and see if there is anything that might give away information about you. Is there a gun safe? Survival gear? Family pictures? Your children or pets? If someone who looks at the picture can gain any actionable information about you, do not post it.

After all, what you do in your daily life is no one’s business but your own.

Trusting Your Smartphone

Our phones are the best surveillance devices ever made. We take them everywhere, and they track our location and record everything we do with them regardless of our privacy settings. The microphone is always listening, and the apps are helping large corporations develop in-depth profiles of us and our habits.

The problem is that it is too difficult to live in the 21st century without these devices.

⇒ Signs You’re Being Tracked and How to Outsmart Your Pursuers

The solution is to open that drawer we all have with old smartphones in it and use one of them to hold all our social media apps and every other app that we do not need daily. The primary phone we use daily should only be able to make calls, send text messages, and take pictures.

This keeps the apps that do the most tracking at home in a drawer rather than in your pocket, gathering a ton of information about you and your daily habits. You still must be careful about what you say around your primary phone, but keeping things separated makes developing detailed profiles about you more challenging.

Your phone at home should be turned off and placed in a Faraday enclosure, such as wrapped in this EMP cloth. Only take it out to use social media apps, send emails, or use any other apps that track you, then turn it off and put it away.

This also helps you limit your phone usage, which is always a huge benefit.

Using Loyalty Cards

Every time you sign up for a store’s loyalty program, you give them private information. You are also allowing them to generate a list of everything you purchase through them and profile your shopping habits.

If you decide to sign up for a loyalty program, consider using a false name attached to a throwaway email address.

Leaving Devices and Accounts Unsecured

Two-factor authorization is often a pain to set up and use. You need to set up any website or service with this option. This will prevent unauthorized access to your sensitive data and alert you to hackers trying to breach your accounts.

It would help if you also used a passcode on your phone that is impossible for anyone to guess. Do not use a combination of meaningful numbers. Instead, use a random number generator to generate your passcode.

Vehicle Stickers and Decals

Be mindful of the decals and stickers you place on your vehicle. If someone were to try to steal your private information, knowing which clubs or organizations you belong to is a great way for them to find out which websites they can hack into to steal the private data that you gave the club or group that you are a member of.

While it is good to show your pride in membership, you are giving away potentially vital information.

Unsecured Wi-Fi

Never use public Wi-Fi.

There is no way you can guarantee that the data your devices are sending are not being intercepted or that malicious software is not being uploaded to your device.

Not Using a VPN

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are encrypted systems that you can use to route your internet traffic. They make anyone on the other end of your traffic believe that you are in a location far away from where you are.

While there are free options, it is worthwhile to find a paid service because you will be able to secure more devices and get faster speeds than with the free options.

These systems are imperfect, and experienced hackers can circumvent them, but the major internet companies and other agencies that gather your data will be prevented from developing an accurate profile of you.

Securing our private data is becoming increasingly difficult as technology integration becomes more complete.

This list is by no means exhaustive of the ways that we are contributing to the erosion of our privacy, but it is a good start to getting you to think about how your data is being siphoned.